WWRM (94.9

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one h ...

) is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough Co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

, and serving the

Tampa Bay area The Tampa Bay area is a major populated area surrounding Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida in the United States. It includes the main cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater. It is the 18th largest metropolitan area in the United ...

. It has an

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when radio was compelle ...

and is owned by

Cox Media Group CMG Media Corporation (doing business as Cox Media Group) is an American media conglomerate principally owned by Apollo Global Management in conjunction with Cox Enterprises, which maintains a 29% minority stake in the company. The company pri ...

. The

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design, ...

s and offices are located on 4th Street North in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. It calls itself ''Magic 94.9''. WWRM has an

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would ...

(ERP) of 100,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to ...

tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specifi ...

is shared with

WTSP WTSP (channel 10) is a television station licensed to St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area as an affiliate of CBS. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., and maintains studios on Gandy Boulevard on St. Petersburg ...

, Tampa's CBS TV

Network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or a ...

, off Rhodine Road in Riverview .

History

Top 40 era

On September 1, 1970, the station

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature, placing one's name on a document * Signature (disambiguation) * Manual communication, signing as a form of communication using the hands in place of the voice * Digital signature A dig ...

as WLCY-FM, and was licensed to St. Petersburg. It was put on the air by Rahall Communications, and was co-owned with WLCY and WLCY-TV. The studios were in the "Rahall Color Communications Center" on Gandy Boulevard. During the early 1970s, WLCY-FM was an

automated Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

station, airing

Drake-Chenault Drake-Chenault Enterprises (originally American Independent Radio Inc.) was a radio broadcast syndication, syndication company that specialized in automation on FM radio stations. The company was founded in the late-1960s by radio programmer and de ...

’s "Hit Parade" and TM’s "Stereo Rock" formats. Hoping to follow the sudden rise in popularity of local Top 40 station

WRBQ-FM WRBQ-FM (104.7 FM, "Q105") is a commercial classic hits music formatted radio station in Tampa, Florida. Owned by Beasley Broadcast Group, its studios are in St. Petersburg while its transmitter is in Palm River-Clair Mel. History Top 40 (197 ...

("Q105") in the mid-1970s, WLCY-FM switched to live

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...

s in 1976, using the moniker "Y95", using the whole-number frequency closest to 94.9. It soon adopted a new call sign, WYNF, a convenient shorthand for "Y-Ninety-Five".

Rock WYNF

In 1980,

Taft Broadcasting The Taft Broadcasting Company (also known as Taft Television and Radio Company, Incorporated) was an American media conglomerate based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company was rooted in the family of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the Un ...

bought the station and rebranded it "95FM--Florida's Best Rock". The music changed from Top 40 to AOR, to compete with the dominant local AOR station, WQXM. WYNF's studios moved from St. Petersburg to Tampa, at 504 Reo Street (near

Tampa International Airport Tampa International Airport is an international airport west of Downtown Tampa, in Hillsborough County, Florida, United States. The airport is publicly owned by Hillsborough County Aviation Authority (HCAA)., effective December 30, 2021. The ...

), home of Taft's

WDAE WDAE (620 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to St. Petersburg, Florida and serving the Tampa Bay area. It is owned by iHeartMedia and airs a sports radio format. WDAE is one of the oldest radio stations in Florida still broadcasting ...

. Two years later, the station was re-branded "95ynf". WYNF began calling itself "The New 95". Taft later became Great American Broadcasting. In 1985, Great American Broadcasting sold WYNF to

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broa ...

subsidiary

Infinity Broadcasting Infinity Broadcasting Corporation was a radio company that existed from 1972 until 2005. It was founded by Michael A. Wiener and Gerald Carrus. It became associated with popular radio personalities like Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Don Imus ...

. The studios were relocated to 4th Street North in St. Petersburg at the Koger Executive Center. 95ynf dominated the Tampa bay area for AOR music. In the early 1980s, WYNF again became a

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

to Channel 10 (now WTSP) after Taft acquired Gulf Broadcasting. (Around that time, WDAE was sold to

Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Greater Washington DC, Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.WSUN from Plough, Inc.)

Ron & Ron

After trying out several morning teams including Nick van Cleve and Jack Strapp, and later replacing van Cleve with Ron Diaz, program director Carey Curelop paired Diaz with local comic

Ron Bennington Ronald Lee Bennington (born December 31, 1958) is an American radio personality and comedian who is currently the co-host of '' Bennington'' and host of '' Unmasked''. Additionally, he has been a co-host of a number of radio shows, including ''Th ...

, creating the popular '' Ron and Ron'' morning show at WYNF in the late nineteen-eighties. The show was successful in the

Arbitron ratings Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by merging ...

and Ron & Ron became known as "Radio's Bad Boys." Their agent Ross Reback helped them form The Ron & Ron Radio Network to own and

syndicate A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies, corporations or entities formed to transact some specific business, to pursue or promote a shared interest. Etymology The word ''syndicate'' comes from the French word ''syndica ...

the show to other FM stations. The show's final broadcast on WYNF was on March 12, 1993. Reback became President and CEO of the newly formed network and negotiated deals to broadcast the show in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures r ...

and

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the c ...

, with another dozen markets soon following (including a new more lucrative deal with WSUN).

Switch to WWRM

In 1993, Cox Broadcasting, owners of WWRM (then at 107.3, as "Warm 107"), bought WYNF, as part of a trade with CBS Radio, also involving stations in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

. The studios were relocated back to St. Petersburg at The Koger Center. By that point, rival rock station

WXTB WXTB (97.9 FM) is a commercial active rock radio station owned by iHeartMedia and licensed to Clearwater, Florida, serving the Tampa Bay Area. The WXTB studios are located in South Tampa, while the station transmitter resides in Holiday. In ad ...

had surpassed WYNF in the Arbitron ratings, eventually forcing WYNF to make a format change. On August 16, 1993, at 10 a.m., WYNF stopped playing rock music and began

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simult ...

ing WSUN's

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...

programming. Seven days later, Cox relocated the

Soft Adult Contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet s ...

format of "Warm 107" and its WWRM

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assig ...

to 94.9, becoming "Warm 94.9". On January 5, 2001, the station had a minor overhaul, becoming "The New Magic 94.9", though keeping the format and WWRM call sign. (WWRM's old frequency at 107.3 has since become

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 198 ...

WXGL.) WWRM evolved to more of a mainstream AC format by

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

, while its new

WDUV concentrated on the softer AC hits. In May 2011, after ten years of being called "The New Magic 94.9", the station dropped "The New" in its name, becoming simply "Magic 94.9." On December 26, 2011, WWRM changed its slogan to "80's, 90's, & now." For many years as a Soft AC station, WWRM had played all-

Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject m ...

for much of November and December. Starting in November 2013, the all-Christmas music format shifted to sister station WDUV.https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153521504620442&set=a.10150240027185442.469958.228458480441&type=1&theater WWRM currently mixes some holiday songs in its usual

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sev ...

from Thanksgiving to Christmas. When WBRN-FM became an

station as WPBB in 2017, WWRM shifted its format a bit more uptempo, with fewer songs released before 2000 being played, while retaining the "Magic" branding. (WPBB has since become a

classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prim ...

station.) WWRM continues its 2000-now direction, in order to differentiate themselves from WDUV.

References

Radio Years, Central Florida's Great Radio Stations of the Past

External links

* * {{COX WRM Mainstream adult contemporary radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1970 Cox Media Group 1970 establishments in Florida